D&D (2024) How much would you spend on monthly subscriptions for dnd?

[overgeeked]

I think people use dndbeyond in person as well? And some people even use a vtt in person

Sure. Some people use paper sheets even when playing online. And some people use theater of the mind. There are free VTTs and there are free resources for those VTTs. There are also free character builders for 5E if you like that kind of thing.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think people use dndbeyond in person as well? And some people even use a vtt in person

I think if I was playing in person I would switch to D&DBeyond for my character sheet.

 

[Clint_L]

I have a master tier subscription on DDB and I consider it incredible value. It costs me 5-6 bucks a month, I think? Easily the best entertainment dollars I have ever spent. If there was a really good virtual tabletop that was easy to use (much easier than Roll20) I would pay for that, maybe a nominal subscription ($5-10/month) but I assume I'd also be making in-app purchases of terrain/creature modules.

I spend several hundred dollars/month on average for physical miniatures and terrain, so subscription fees are a drop in the bucket.

Edit: building on the "renting" vs. "owning" discussion folks were having, I am all for renting! Less wasteful and I don't wind up with crap cluttering up my house - I do enough of that with my miniatures.

 

[Greg Benage]

I don't know what's included in the subscription.

I pay $100/year for a Roll20 Pro subscription, but then I also buy the Roll20 version of some books. List price is the same as the hardcopies. I've been averaging a couple products a year, so figure another $100 for content. According to my Roll20 stats, I've averaged over 500 hours a year there since 2014, though that includes time that I'm "in the game" prepping for the next session. But still, maybe 50 cents an hour spent on my favorite hobby for the past 42 years, so it feels like a pretty good value. Oh, I do buy the occasional item from DMs Guild, but not often and the cost is negligible.

I could imagine myself paying $500/year for D&D, but I'd need more value out of it than what I have now (basically VTT, character builder, and content).

 

[Malmuria]

I used to pay the $6 per month for D&D Insider, and that more than made the subscription worth it. I currently pay for the big DM tier currently for D&D Beyond and find it to be not at all onerous. I also throw Morrus a few sheckles every year for whatever tier it is I'm subscribed to EN World (Copper level or something?) as this place has given me hours of entertainment.

I personally find the comments about not wanting to "rent" material to be a bit overblown myself... seeing as how I've literally bought RPG material for good money, glanced through it for an hour, and then have NEVER gone back to it in however many years it has been and its just sat on my shelf. So those products might as well have been things I "subscribed to" then "lost" when the "servers got shut down" for all the results I got out of them. And the fact that I still technically "have them" is meaningless if I don't use them.

Owning something you don't use is not intrinsically better than renting something you do, as far as I'm concerned.

True, though if you buy something physical like a book you could always sell it later

 

[Shiroiken]

If you and your players have good internet bandwidth, you might consider Foundry. One time $50 cost. You get best-on-market dynamic lighting, much more easily prepped maps, access to a dizzying number of community mods. If hosting on your own computer, your only storage limits are those of your machine.

I do use a hosting service to host my instance of Foundry, but that mostly because I'm usually running games from an location with not-great bandwidth and my players are in another country. There are other benefits to the hosting service I use, but if I were back working in, and running games from, the United States, I would likely just self-host on my computer. All of my content is fully portable. No lock in.

I've been a player in a Foundry game, and I found it to be a really good system. However, not only would I be unable to host it on my 10 year old laptop, I'm not computer savvy enough to know how. I think of all the paid options, it's almost certainly the best choice, but as I said... as long as I can successfully use Roll20 for free, it's unlikely I'll make the switch. If I have to switch, Foundry will almost certainly be my new system.

 

[payn]

I've been a player in a Foundry game, and I found it to be a really good system. However, not only would I be unable to host it on my 10 year old laptop, I'm not computer savvy enough to know how. I think of all the paid options, it's almost certainly the best choice, but as I said... as long as I can successfully use Roll20 for free, it's unlikely I'll make the switch. If I have to switch, Foundry will almost certainly be my new system.

The Forge allows you to host online your foundry games. I beleive its like 40 bucks a year for the entry tier which gets you a few game worlds. I have put a ton of art and journals into my Traveller game.

WotC sub system would have to offer at least that much. I know some folks are freaking out because they dont think you will be able to play 5E anywhere but on WotC system, but Foundry has proven to be pretty easy to use. Affordable to boot. So there is definitely levels of survival I am ready to accept.

 

[R_J_K75]

Literally nothing. Print books and purchased PDFs only. Too many free resources to bother buying services.

These are generally my feelings too. Depending on what's offered on D&D Beyond and WotC VTT come the 2024 1D&D release I may be inclined to throw down some money for a month trial to give it a shot depending on the cost.

Edit: I think $25 is a realistic price for both, but again all depends on what is included.

 

[Scribe]

A big $0.

 

[shadowoflameth]

So if the results so far and my own vote are any indicator, if they do not want to lose more than half their players, they better not do this.